SCI-ARC LECTURE

Sylvia Lavin's most recent book "Kissing Architecture" examines contemporary architecture's relationship with visual art practices, a theme also developed in her recent critical essays published in a wide variety of journals from Artforum to LOG. Current projects include her forthcoming book, "The Flash in the Pan and Other Forms of Architectural Contemporaneity," and "Everything Loose Will Land," an exhibition opening at the MAK Los Angeles on May 9 and supported by the Getty PST initiative on art and architecture in the 1970s in LA. Lavin is currently Director of the Critical Studies MA and PhD program in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and Director of The Curatorial Project, a collaborative design and research group that supports the critical engagement with experimental architecture in the public realm. She is the recipient of a 2011 Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Born in Munich, Thomas Demand studied at the Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf and Goldsmith's College in London. His solo exhibitions include shows at the Graham Foundation, Chicago (2013), DHC Art Center, Montréal (2013), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2012), the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2012), Kaldor Public Arts Project #25, Sydney (2012), Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2009), MUMOK, Vienna (2009), the Fondazione Prada, Venice (2007), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2006), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2005), and a retrospective at the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004). Demand also represented Germany at the 26th Sao Paulo Biennale (2004). His curated shows include "La carte d'après nature" at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (2010) which traveled to Matthew Marks Gallery (2011); a room for the Fondazione Prada Ca' Corner della Regina (2011); and his latest contribution to the 13th Architecture Biennale 'Common Ground' (2012). Past solo shows include the Lenbachhaus, Munich, the Castelo de Rivoli, Turin, the Dundee Comtemporary Arts as well as the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. Demand's work is represented in numerous museums and collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Tate Modern, London. He lives and works in Berlin and Los Angeles.